Assets are valuable items that can be movable or fixed. Distributed assets are assets that are geographically dispersed. Typically, companies own and/or maintain multiple distributed and non-distributed assets that they purchase or lease (or both) from one or more asset vendors. Successful management of such assets, including efficient and effective asset installation and evaluation, can help companies maximize asset value and reduce costs. As used herein, the term “asset installation” means placing an asset in a designated place or condition and/or preparing the asset for use. The term “asset evaluation” is used herein to mean evaluating the placement, operation, or condition of an asset to determine the value of the asset.
Service representatives typically are responsible for asset installation and evaluation. Each service representative can be employed, e.g., by the asset holder, the asset vendor, or a third party person or entity, such as a service representative agency. For simplicity, each service representative's employer, whether an asset holder, asset vendor, or another person or entity, is referred to herein as a “service representative agency.” The term “asset holder” is used herein to refer to a person or entity that operates, owns, leases, or possesses an asset. Depending on the size of a company, the types and amounts of the company's assets, the geographic displacement among the company's assets, and the particular type of work to be performed on or with the company's assets, the company may require assistance from multiple service representatives. For example, a company comprising multiple types of assets, such as various types of food service equipment, that are geographically dispersed throughout the United States may require several service representatives to install and/or evaluate the condition of the assets.
Each service representative usually must be trained to uniformly handle the particular types of assets and installation and evaluation procedures to which they are assigned. Traditionally, such training has involved reading lengthy training manuals, attending intensive seminars, taking proficiency examinations, and/or serving as a pseudo apprentice under an experienced service representative. The resources spent, in both time and money, to train service representatives can be significant—often prohibitively so.
Once in the field, service representatives generally are unsupervised. The asset holders, asset vendors, and/or service representative agencies expect the service representatives to uniformly complete their work assignments in accordance with their training. Traditionally, however, neither the asset holders, asset vendors, nor the service representative agencies have been able to conveniently or effectively monitor the service representatives' performance, e.g., to monitor progress or ensure uniformity of service levels and methodologies.
A conventional approach to monitoring service representatives' performance is to require the service representatives to complete written reports or checklists upon completion of a work assignment. The reports/checklists are mailed or hand-delivered to the service representative agencies, which analyze the reports/checklists and generate additional reports based on the information contained therein. Because the reports/checklists are not delivered until after the work assignment, sometimes days or weeks after the work assignment, the service representative agencies' reports can sometimes be incomplete and untimely.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists in the art for a system and method of managing asset installation and evaluation, whereby service representatives can efficiently and uniformly complete their work assignments. In addition, a need exists in the art for such a system and method to enable asset holders, asset vendors, and/or service representative agencies to timely monitor the service representatives' work performance.